Looking back over the past year, I am tempted to repeat the words with which I opened my summary of last year's television: “Trust is a delicate quality, which is difficult to regain if it is lost. This has been a year in which many people, as well as losing their faith in banks and the Government . . . also lost trust in television.” Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC, doesn’t seem to have read those words, even though I believe he lives locally and could presumably afford to buy this newspaper. The BBC – and several other TV channels – played fast and loose with viewers by cheating them over telephone votes about such trivial matters as the naming of the Blue Peter cat. More recently, the BBC made a mess of the voting for Strictly Come Dancing, thus alienating customers even further. Despite this, the feeling emanating from the BBC is too often self-congratulatory. Points of View (BBC1) claims to be listening to viewers but it seems to do little about continuing complaints over excessive background music, squeezed end-credits, unnecessary trailers, unpunctuality, or jumpy camerawork. This is not to say that the BBC doesn’t make some good programmes, many of which are on BBC2 or hidden on BBC4 – or, like Summerhill (BBC1), tucked away on children’s television. Among the worthwhile dramas were Einstein and Eddington (BBC2, pictured) and God on Trial (BBC2), although they made a dog’s breakfast of Lark Rise to Candleford (BBC1) and tried to follow the success of Life on Mars with the unremarkable Ashes to Ashes (BBC1).The BBC paid for Jonathan Dimbleby to traipse around Russia; Stephen Fry to make fleeting visits to every US state; and Andrew Marr to look at Britain from Above (BBC1) – although this last was often earthbound. Still, the BBC provided some good documentaries, including The English Surgeon, Amazon with Bruce Parry and World War II: Behind Closed Doors – all on BBC2, although its ‘White season’ was a misjudgement. Louis Theroux supplied some of the best BBC2 documentaries with his visits to San Quentin, Philadelphia and Africa, which all elicited revealing facts about such things as American crime and hunters in an African game reserve. And comedian Jo Brand gave us a sympathetic view of Vera Brittain in A Woman in Love and War (BBC1) – although it was shamefully rescheduled without sufficient notice. The BBC needs to take control of its schedulers before they ruin our viewing. Channel 4 continued to be a useful place to find educative documentaries, like My Street, The Men Who Wouldn’t Fight and How TV Changed Britain. Its series Unreported World is still a unique source of documentaries about problems that seldom get into the news. Fundamentalism – whether religious or anti-religious – got plenty of coverage. Disturbing aspects of American religious fervour were on display in Jonestown (BBC2), Baby Bible Bashers (Channel 4) and The Virgin Daughters (Channel 4). The Qur’an (Channel 4) aroused controversy but it was an honest attempt to cover many interpretations of an influential book. The Vicar of Baghdad (ITV1) was one of the most moving documentaries of the year – profiling a clergyman doing his best to relieve conflict in Iraq. Comedy programming failed to produce anything startlingly new, although Outnumbered (BBC1) captured (painfully rather than amusingly) the agonies of bringing up children. For humour we mostly had to turn to longer-running series like Have I Got News For You (BBC1 and 2), Bremner, Bird & Fortune (Channel 4), Harry Hill’s TV Burp (ITV1) and The IT Crowd (Channel 4). BBC4 deserves praise for its music coverage, with memorable programmes featuring Quincy Jones, Oscar Peterson, Les Paul and Louis Armstrong. The South Bank Show (ITV1) filmed a striking portrait of violinist Tasmin Little. And BBC1 gave us fine documentaries on the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic. However, Maestro (BBC2) was a lamentably superficial series, while the coverage of Young Musician of the Year (BBC2) was despicably dumbed-down.